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From the U.S. Attorney's Office:
TYLER, TX - U.S. Attorney John M. Bales announced today that 16 individuals have been arrested following a lengthy investigation into drug trafficking in the Eastern District of Texas.
On Dec. 10, 2013, a combined task force of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies began arresting individuals named in a federal indictment returned by a grand jury on Nov. 20, 2013. The indictment charges the following individuals with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana in the Eastern District of Texas:
Antonio Cortez Gonzales, 34, of Tyler,
Monica Hensley, 35, of Longview,
Guillermo Ortiz-Pineda, 38, of Houston,
Juan Gutierrez Mojica, 43, of Tyler,
Miriam Reyes, 41, of Houston,
Juvencio Duque, 53, of Dallas,
Mauricio Orrostieta Rodriguez, 40, of Tyler,
Alejandro Hernandez, 46, of Irving,
Ivan Sanchez, 21, of Tyler,
Esteban Avellaneda Munoz, 19, of Tyler,
Jonhyayala, 34, of Tyler,
Jesus Botello, 34, of Tyler,
Guadalupe Cuarenta, 48, of Tyler,
Sergio Mojica, 30, of Tyler,
Luis Garcia-Aguirre, 32, of Tyler, and
Ireri Pineda, xx, of Tyler.
The defendants will appear today in federal court for initial appearances. If convicted, the defendants face from 10 years to life in federal prison.
This case is the result of an ongoing Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) joint investigation. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and money laundering organizations, and those primarily responsible for the nation's illegal drug supply.
In August 2012, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Tyler Task Force, in conjunction with multiple law enforcement agencies, initiated an OCDETF investigation into a crystal methamphetamine trafficking organization based in the East Texas area with direct ties to Mexico. The organization also distributes cocaine and marijuana. This 16 month investigation involved extensive surveillance and innovative investigative techniques. Several sources of supply for crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana were identified during the course of the investigation. To date, law enforcement officials have seized multiple pounds of crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana. Officers have also seized more than $158,000 cash, multiple weapons, vehicles, and real property.
"Today's enforcement operations are indicative of the DEA's commitment to rid our communities of drug trafficking organizations determined to profit on the backs of addiction," said the DEA Dallas Division's Special Agent in Charge Daniel R. Salter. "Citizens in East Texas can rest assured that the DEA and our law enforcement partners are determined to ensure that Tyler and its surrounding communities remain safe and a great place to live. The success of this investigation is an outstanding example of our law enforcement community's resolve and determination."
The DEA Task Force in Tyler includes officers from the Gregg County Sheriff's Office, Henderson County Sheriff's Office, Henderson Police Department, Kilgore Police Department, Smith County Sheriff's Office, and Upshur County Sheriff's Office, as well as DEA Special Agents.
Other agencies assisting in the joint investigation include the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Department of Public Safety (DPS), Kilgore Police Department, Longview Police Department, Gregg County Sheriff's Office, Smith County Sheriff's Office, Tyler Police Department, and the Harris County Sheriff's Office. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Ann Cozby.


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Lord Ouseley?s comments come following the latest arrest made over an alleged incident of racism at the Manchester derby on Sunday. That arrest follows a year of controversy dominated by bans issued to former England skipper John Terry and Liverpool?s Luis Suarez over racist comments made on the pitch.
In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Ouseley reflected on how these incidents were handled during a year which saw the Premier League and Football Association mired in debate.
?There is very little morality in football among the top clubs,? Ouseley told the Guardian.
?Leadership is so important; you have to send a powerful message that racism is completely unacceptable. But there is a moral vacuum. The big clubs look after their players as assets. There was no bold attitude from them, to say that they would not put up with it.
?The condemnations have been mealy mouthed. The FA did a good job with how they handled the independent commissions themselves ? they showed that firm action is now taken when racist abuse is reported to them.
?We want all players and fans to feel confident about reporting abuse. But the FA did not say anything about the lies and distortions which came out in John Terry?s and Ashley Cole?s evidence.
?Instead the players are protected. The Premier League could have set the tone; they and the FA do a good job in community work. But on this, I have not heard anything from the Premier League.?
Terry was found guilty by an FA commission of having racially abused QPR defender Anton Ferdinand in October 2011. Suarez, meanwhile, received an eight-match ban for similarly abusing Manchester United?s Patrice Evra.
The players? respective managers Andre Villas-Boas and Kenny Dalglish stated support for their charges publicly, while England manager Roy Hodgson also weighed into the debate by praising the character of Terry and controversially omitting Anton?s brother Rio Ferdinand from his squad.
Kick It Out, Ouseley insists, followed appropriate protocol by not commenting until after trials were complete. Ouseley believes the public comments made to be another example of clubs and the FA protecting star players.
?We were observing the process,? Ouseley said, ?but the managers were speaking out and sticking up for Luis Suarez and John Terry.
?The FA should have asserted themselves, said they would not put up with people disrespecting the process, but the FA were very slack and weak. The whole 12 months was wasted in hypocrisy. Even now the FA has not acknowledged the hurt and pain caused to Anton Ferdinand and his family after the length of time it took.
?When Rio Ferdinand was told he was not good enough, whereas John Terry went to the Euros, that hurt the black players the most. They could see nobody speaking up for them, and the establishment seemed to be looking after its favourites.?
Send your news stories to [email protected] and via WhatsApp on +1-508-812-0505

subset: commoncrawl


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From nursery rhymes to fantasy anthologies, fill your shelves with stories to raise your children by.
Several years ago I stood in a long line at the airport behind a mother and her kindergartener as we inched toward security. I was headed to Boston to meet with my editor about a book I was writing, and I was beginning to nurture a seed of doubt in my premise-that sharing stories with children provides an important opening for parents and teachers to offer character education and share the faith.
A woman walked by and captured the attention of everyone in line. She was dressed in a plain black business suit, yet she was far from ordinary. Her face, marred beyond human likeness, was astonishing, shocking. Horror gave way to pity as we alternately gaped and turned away. No one said a word except the little girl standing in front of me who suddenly pointed and cried out, "Look, Mommy! Isn't that lady ugly?"
Something truly remarkable happened next. Rather than remain paralyzed by embarrassment, the mother quietly accepted the opportunity of a teachable moment and knelt down in front of her outspoken child. "Do you remember that book we read last week, The Rough-Face Girl?" she asked her.
"Uh huh."
"Well, why was the girl so unhappy?"
"Because her sisters made fun of her burnt-up face."
"How did she feel when people pointed out her scars?" the mom continued.
"She hated it."
"Well, how do you think that lady feels when people remind her of her scars?"
"It probably hurts her feelings."
"Yes, I think it probably does."
"I'm sorry, Mommy."
"It's OK, honey. Let's just remember The Rough-Face Girl next time."
And with a hug, this mom completed her lesson with her bright little daughter and delivered a moment of grace to the only person in line who could hear their hushed conversation: me. I no longer doubted what I know to be true-that story provides the best and most accessible means of teaching children about faith and values, and that the best way to share stories with kids is to read to them.
The Rough-Face Girl (Putnam, 1992), written by Rafe Martin and illustrated by David Shannon, is the re-telling of an Algonquin tale in which a girl's face and arms are scarred and disfigured from tending the fire. Like Cinderella, the girl is ridiculed and tormented by her two mean sisters until she finds love and healing in a happy ending.
The airport mom used the story to teach her daughter about empathy and kindness, but this same story contains themes of hope, perseverance, and justice, and offers captivating images of Native American culture along the shores of Lake Ontario. Like many stories available to today's families, it is a treasure trove of conversation-starters brimming with seeds of the gospel.
More than a good story
St. Justin Martyr, a second-century Christian thinker, wrote that each of us holds a gift for perceiving glimmers of truth because we are creatures of God, the source of truth. Every little bit of truth we recognize in our daily lives is a "seed" of the gospel. Justin cultivated the seeds he found in Greek philosophy; in the same way, we can unearth them in stories that we read with children.
Fortunately, many well-written stories with memorable characters and meaningful messages are readily available. Take, for example, one of the best-selling children's books of all-time: E. B. White's 1952 classic, Charlotte's Web (HarperCollins). On the surface, it is a delightful barnyard story about a pig named Wilbur, the runt of the litter who is rescued from the meat platter by Fern, the farmer's daughter, and later befriended by Charlotte, an amazing spider who speaks to him in his darkest hour.
Scratch below the surface and seeds of the gospel are plentiful here. There's Fern's valor in defending the life of the most vulnerable in her midst. There's also Charlotte, who consoles Wilbur and invites him to discover joy. "I sure wish I had a friend like Charlotte," an adult might say to launch an interesting talk about friendship and the child's current buddies.
A more recent literary example is Savvy by Ingrid Law (Walden Media, 2008), a 2009 Newbery Honor book. Although many current award-winning titles have received more attention, this one is rich in language and meaning, yet not as dark in tone as some. Centered around a girl named Mibs who comes from a family with special talents, it's a fun read-aloud choice with vocabulary that almost sings.
Mibs, along with some memorable supporting characters, sets out to save her father and comes to discover that everyone she encounters has special gifts, although some never recognize them. The story opens a door to many conversations, including where our gifts and talents come from and how we can find out how God wants us to use them.
Heart of darkness
Although Charlotte's Web and Savvy suggest a dark side of life, many children's titles these days wade deep into the darkness. The 2009 winner of the John Newbery Medal for excellence in children's literature, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (HarperCollins, 2008), begins, "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."
Inspired by Rudyard Kipling's 1894 classic, The Jungle Book (Puffin Classics, 2009 edition), about a boy raised by wolves and the moral lessons he learns from animals lurking in the Indian jungle, Gaiman presents a boy whose family is assassinated by the blade featured in the book's opening line. Ghosts in a nearby graveyard, like Mowgli's wolves, adopt the child and provide a safe, albeit creepy, home for him. The big surprise is that this clever, well-written book carries a life-affirming message of love.
Several current series of books dip into the darkness as well. Rick Riordan's hit series Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Disney Hyperion, 2009), soon to become a movie series, introduces trouble caused when the gods of Greek mythology mess with the modern world. Trenton Lee Stewart's popular series about The Mysterious Benedict Society (Little, Brown, 2007-2009) features kids working to outsmart an evil criminal mastermind bent on taking over the world. And what could be darker than the world of vampires and werewolves depicted in Stephenie Meyer's wildly popular Twilight series (Little, Brown, 2005-2008)?
For me, the answer is probably Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events (HarperCollins, 1999-2007). While Twilight is a story of enduring love, Lemony Snicket remains relentlessly depressing throughout all 13 volumes. Of course, that is the point, and a lot of readers enjoy that, but with so many choices available that offer hopeful messages, it seems unfortunate to pass along a story steeped in cynicism.
The majority of current series, Lemony Snicket's included, owe some of their success to J. K. Rowling, whose record-breaking Harry Potter series (Scholastic, 1997-2007) invigorated the publishing industry and helped kids learn or remember the joy of reading. Harry still has his critics, but his exciting story offers many seeds of the gospel and gives adults and children numerous topics to discuss.
Slaying the dragon
While Harry Potter can be dark, evil has long been included in stories for children. Snow White features a witch who tries to poison her; Rapunzel's witch-mom locks her in a tower; and poor Hansel and Gretel's father and stepmother leave them in the woods, where a wicked witch enslaves and plans to eat them.
Adults have shared these stories for generations to underscore a fundamental seed of the gospel-that good will conquer evil. In the words of 20th-century Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton, "Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed."
While violence in books is not received in a rapid-fire television way, written accounts of real-world violence can be terribly disturbing to kids. In sixth grade, my youngest son was required to read They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan (PublicAffairs, 2005), a harrowing account that left him with nightmares. It was too real and raw for him to process.
Fiction, on the other hand, provides a safe distance from which we can examine evil. Fiction carries us away from reality to a fresh perspective, where we can examine problems, personalities, and situations in safety and privacy. Once we've sorted out our feelings and ideas, even those provoked by violence within a story, we can begin to interpret them and work toward some understanding.
Gather 'round
Kids are ready to listen to stories from the moment they arrive in our lives. Even better news is that kids will continue to listen to stories for as long as we'll read to them. My oldest, now a dean's list college student, suffered a mild case of senioritis toward the end of high school. Typically an avid reader, he lay on his bed with an unopened green leather book by his side. "What's that? Homework?" I asked.
"Yep, British history. It's Le Morte d'Arthur," he said.
"Mallory?" I swooned. "Excalibur? The Sangreal? Knights of the Round Table? You love that sort of thing."
"It's just . . . well, dense. Or maybe I'm dense. I just can't get into it."
"Scooch over. And thank God it isn't chemistry or trig. This I can help with."
Time halted and then surged in reverse as we revisited our younger days on our way into Camelot. Soon we were worlds away, relaxing over a wonderful story. Much of our relationship had developed there, side by side over years of story time. It was a comfortable place we both remembered fondly, a place of refreshment where mind and spirit come together for a true experience of the divine. As the sign said above the library door in ancient Thebes, a place with books is truly a "Healing Place of the Soul."


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team of geneticists studying the ancestry of Jewish communities has found an unusual genetic signature that occurs in more than half the Levites of Ashkenazi descent. The signature is thought to have originated in Central Asia, not the Near East, which is the ancestral home of Jews. The finding raises the question of how the signature became so widespread among the Levites, an ancient caste of hereditary Jewish priests.
The genetic signature occurs on the male or Y chromosome and comes from a few men, or perhaps a single ancestor, who lived about 1,000 years ago, just as the Ashkenazim were beginning to be established in Europe. Ashkenazim, from whom most American Jews descend, are one of the two main branches of Jews, the other being the Sephardim, whose ancestors were expelled from Spain.
The new report, published in the current issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, was prepared by population geneticists in Israel, the United States and England, who have been studying the genetics of Jewish communities for the last six years.
They say that 52 percent of Levites of Ashkenazi origin have a particular genetic signature that originated in Central Asia, although it is also found less frequently in the Middle East. The ancestor who introduced it into the Ashkenazi Levites could perhaps have been from the Khazars, a Turkic tribe whose king converted to Judaism in the eighth or ninth century, the researchers suggest.
Their reasoning is that the signature, a set of DNA variations known as R1a1, is common in the region north of Georgia that was once occupied by the Khazar kingdom. The signature did reach the Near East, probably before the founding of the Jewish community, but it is still rare there. The scholars say they cannot exclude the possibility that a Jewish founder brought the signature on his Y chromosome to the Ashkenazi population, but they consider that a less likely explanation.
The present descendants of the Khazars have not been identified. Dr. Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona, one of the authors of the report, said he was looking among the Chuvash, a Turkic-speaking people of the Volga Valley, to see if they might have contributed the R1a1 signature.
Dr. Shaye Cohen, professor of Hebrew literature and philosophy at Harvard University, said he could see no problem with outsiders being converted to the Jewish community. He said he considered it less probable, however, that outsiders would become Levites, let alone founding members of the Levite community in Europe. The connection with the Khazars is "all hypothesis," he said.
Even if the Khazar hypothesis is correct, it would have no practical effect on who is a Levite today. "Genetics is not a reality under rabbinic law," Dr. Cohen said. "Second, the function of Levites is so minimal it doesn't mean anything."
Six years ago Dr. Hammer and Dr. Karl Skorecki, of the Technion and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, looked at the Y chromosomes of both Levites and Cohanim. Both are hereditary priesthoods passed from father to son. They were important in ancient Israel, but sometime between 200 B.C. and A.D. 500 their functions were taken over by rabbis, and Jewish status came to be defined by the biologically more reliable standard of maternal descent.
If the patrilineal descent of the two priestly castes had indeed been followed as tradition describes, then all Cohanim should be descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses, and all Levites from Levi, the third son of the patriarch Jacob. Dr. Hammer and Dr. Skorecki found that more than half the Cohanim, in both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities, did indeed carry the same genetic signature on their Y chromosome. Their ancestor lived some 3,000 years ago, based on genetic calculations, and may indeed have been Aaron, Dr. Skorecki said.
But the picture among the Levites was less clear, suggesting that they had a mixed ancestry. Dr. Hammer and Dr. Skorecki returned to the puzzle for their new report, based on data gathered from nearly 1,000 men of Ashkenazi and Sephardi origin and neighboring non-Jewish populations.
They found that the dominant signature among the Levites was the R1a1 signature, which is different from the Cohanim signature. The paternal ancestry of the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Levites is different, unlike the Cohanim from the two branches, who resemble each other and presumably originated before the two branches split. And the ancestor of the R1a1 signature apparently lived 2,000 years more recently than the founder of the Cohanim signature.
The Levites' pedigree does not seem to accord with tradition as well as the Cohanim one does but is venerable nonetheless. "How many people can trace their ancestry back to the 17th century, let alone a thousand years?" Dr. Hammer said.
here to view this report at NT Times.


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|Shirogane Clan
|(白銀一族, Shirogane Ichizoku)
|Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2
|Appears in
|Clan Data
The Shirogane Clan (白銀一族, Shirogane Ichizoku) was the puppet clan from the Land of Wind.
The Shirogane clan lived on the border of the Land of Wind. They were a small clan with no particularly skilled ninja. Trying to find a source of power to compensate for that, they created puppet walkers. Wielding an army, they survived the Shinobi Wars. But a dark secret was exposed: to develop the puppet walkers, they abducted humans and experimented on them. The puppet walkers were outlawed, causing the clan start a rebellion against the Five Great Nations and being annihilated. They were the developers of the Master Puppet, the ultimate puppet walker who have power to destroy nations. But an unexpected event happened: it had its own will. And fearing its immense power, and the prospect that the puppet might one day rebel against its creators, the Shirogane sealed the Master Puppet away into the five Spirit Orbs. The Master Puppet was about to be revived during the rebellion, but the clan was squashed before they could do so. The last survivors hid the Spirit Orbs and after swearing revenge on the Five Great Nations, disappeared.
The Shirogane were said to be comprised of ninja with meagre skill compared to the other existing shinobi clans. However, they were highly proficient in the puppet-making arts, as it was their apparent inferiority that led to them developing the Puppet Walkers. These Puppet Walkers are superior to normal puppets in general since they can operate without a nearby puppeteer as they can be manipulated from a distance, and are capable of getting up after receiving multiple hits from the opposition. The Shirogane Three, a trio of the clan's survivors bent on reviving the Master Puppet, and use it as the trigger for clan's revival, were all skilled puppeteers, able to control their puppets in such a way that they could not only copy a target's appearance, but also near-accurately mimic the skills of their targets.
- "Shirogane" (白銀) literally means "silvery-white".


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I'm tired, so tired, looking at a screen full of things I do not want to read. There are stories, twisted tales, those who seek attention and those who pretend not to. There are those who in any other format I would deem perverted, yet, here, I am supposed to accept. This is not what I want. This is so not what I want.
There are words piled before me, words I use, but not in the order I would use them. There are sentences and syntax set to pictures, both moving and still, songs and celebrations, lives from here, there and everywhere, and none of them mine. There are lives lost and lives found and some somewhere in between. I try to indulge them, help even, but it is with a heart steeped in regret. Why? Just because. I need no reason nor excuse, I'm beyond that, no debts owed.
Answer them all, they say. It's for your own good, they scream. Get involved. Sell yourself. Porn your life for the greater good. And most do. And most will. But I won't.
So, in the arms of exhaustion, I realise, all I want to do is write. It is the only thing I'm good at, and the only thing I wish. I have so much to exhale. Such a lot. This is what I must do. And this is what I shall.
Take a breath. Close your eyes. Put your fingers to the keyboard. And smile. At last.


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Kurt Nimmo
February 26, 2009
It was a joke, but not funny. Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve mob boss, declared in his semi annual report to the Senate Banking Committee earlier this week "there is a reasonable prospect" the "recession" will end this year. The stock market responded with an upward blip of conditional and cynical enthusiasm.
|Helicopter Ben, Obama, Congress, and much of the corporate media still refuse to tell the truth — we're in a depression, not a recession.
Helicopter Ben, Obama, Congress, and much of the corporate media still refuse to tell the truth — we're in a depression, not a recession. The cable news shows tell us Obama's "stimulus" bill will make things right, when in fact the latest thinly disguised boondoggle — coupled with the multi-trillion dollar banker bailout scams — will soon usher in crushing hyperinflation.
It was meant to be this way. It was designed to turn you into a share cropper, a peasant, a modern day version of a serf indebted to the international bankers.
It is quite a toxic stew — stock market on the fall, corporate bankruptcies, bank failures, insurance failures, cities and states on the verge of bankruptcies, a foreclosure epidemic, government bond collapse, pension plans looted, the credit markets in a deep freeze… and yet Bernanke tells us we'll be fine soon as we get past the rough patch.
Ben and Obama have the answer — more government spending and more debt for our children and their children. In other words, the answer to a crisis created by indebtedness is more debt. It's like giving a shivering alcoholic a case of Special Brew to cure his alcoholism, as Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University, so eloquently put it.
Bad credit is the Special Brew for government. A banker compromised Congress created the Federal Reserve System, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, Sallie Mae, the Federal Housing Administration and the Federal Home Loan Banks, and that's just the beginning. Government directly encouraged the indebtedness of four out of five home-related borrowers. The national debt of the United States officially stands at $10.802 trillion, or about $37,851 per capita and 65.5 percent of GDP, although this figure is seriously understated due to off-balance sheet obligations, that is to say money we owe the bankers but the government is not telling us about.
In fact, the "obligations" of the federal government come in around $65 trillion, a figure that exceeds the gross domestic product of the world.
Instead of working to deflate the astronomical debt bubble, Obama and the Democrats are pumping it up. Never mind what the talking heads say on CNN and MSNBC — reading from their government, i.e., banker, scripts — the "stimulus" bill will not cure anything. It will make the situation far worse.
"Expected federal borrowing for 2009 and 2010 will be far from modest, and the consequences will be significant for interest rates — and potentially crippling for the economy," writes J. D. Foster, an economist at The Heritage Foundation. In other words, Obama and crew will actually increase the cost of mortgages, not lower them. Obama is telling sweet little lies, as Fleetwood Mac might put it.
It was designed this way. The bankers print, regulate, and inflate our money supply through the Federal Reserve, the mother of all "debt engines," as Ron Paul has called it. The privately-owned Fed will now "monetize the debt," that is to say the bankers will turn on the printing presses in order to meet Treasury debt "obligations," including the "stimulus" bill, actually a debt-creation bill that will do the opposite of what Obama and Congress tell us it will do.
Meanwhile, as Bernanke lamely attempts to reassure us about the "recession," the banker-owned government is gearing up for the coming fallout. CIA White House intelligence reports now concentrate on "the global financial crisis and its cascading effects on the stability of countries through the world," according to the Washington Post. "The addition of economic news to the daily roundup of terrorist attacks and surveillance reports appears to reflect a growing belief among intelligence officials that the economic meltdown is now preeminent among security threats facing the United States."
Last December, a report issued by the U.S. Army War College warned that the banker engineered economic crisis "could lead to massive civil unrest and the need to call on the military to restore order," as the El Paso Times phrased it. "Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities" from going after manufactured terrorists such as al-Qaeda to going after the American people.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Nathan Freir characterized what is to come as an "unforeseen economic collapse."
On the contrary, the economic collapse was planned well in advance. "From now on depressions will be scientifically created," declared congressman Charles A. Lindberg Sr. after the Federal Reserve was established in the dead of night.
The very same science is at work today. It will eventually reduce us to peonage if we don't stand up and and demand the bankers be arrested and tried for treason — and sooner before later.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon will pay about 4 percent less for each new Lockheed Martin Corp (>> Lockheed Martin Corporation) F-35A fighter jet when it signs a deal worth $3.8 billion with the No. 1 U.S. defense contractor on Friday, according to sources familiar with the deal.
Each of the 22 conventional takeoff and landing jets in the fifth production contract will cost around $107 million, excluding the engine, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
That compares to a price of $111.6 million for the F-35As to be used by the Air Force that were included in the fourth contract with Lockheed.
The contract for 32 jets also includes 3 B-models for the U.S. Marine Corps, which can land vertically, and seven C-models to be used on aircraft carriers for the U.S. Navy.
The Defense Department is negotiating a separate contract with Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp (>> United Technologies Corporation), for the engines that will power the new warplanes. Pentagon officials hope to conclude that deal by year end.
A senior defense official said the Pentagon plans to sign the deal with Lockheed on Friday, a long-awaited agreement that moves forward the most costly weapons program in U.S. history and should make future negotiations easier.
The deal gives Lockheed a 12-percent profit margin, according to Loren Thompson, a defense consultant with close ties to the company.
Lockheed shares closed 19 cents or 0.21 percent lower at $91.81 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
The government also expects to reach an agreement soon with Lockheed on early funding for a sixth group of F-35s, a step that could help reduce a potential $1.1 billion liability the weapons maker faced from work it had already done on the jets without a signed contract, the official said.
The final amount of the contract will be determined on Friday, since it must factor in the exchange rate of the British pound, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon announced on November 30 that it had reached an agreement in principle with Lockheed on the fifth production contract after a year of arduous negotiations, saying it aimed to finalize terms by the end of the year.
The contract will also pay for manufacturing support equipment, instrumentation for flight testing and other mission equipment needed for the new radar-evading warplanes.
Signing the contract before year-end will safeguard funds for the F-35 from $52.3 billion in automatic budget cuts due to kick in on January 2 for fiscal 2013 unless Congress acts.
It also will allow Lockheed and its suppliers on the program -- Northrop Grumman Corp (>> Northrop Grumman Corporation) and Britain's BAE Systems Plc (>> BAE Systems plc) -- to log additional orders in their 2012 results.
Thompson said the new unit cost of the A-models included $95 million in the actual cost of the planes, a 12 percent profit margin for Lockheed, plus some funds for retrofits to address problems discovered during testing, which is ongoing.
"This represents a moderate reduction in the cost of each plane," he said.
Lockheed officials had said last month that the company expected to reduce labor costs by 14 percent from the actual costs of the fourth lot.
Separately, Canada -- one of the eight international partners helping to develop the new plane -- on Wednesday scrapped a controversial plan to buy 65 F-35 jets from Lockheed, saying that it would evaluate all available options for acquiring new fighter jets.
The Conservative government said an independent panel would look at possible replacements for the country's aging fleet of CF-18 fighters, but could still buy the F-35 if it turns out to be the best option.
Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Melinda Morgan said Canada remained a partner in the F-35 program. She said the review Canada was now undertaking was similar to one run by the United States in 2010, which found no alternative fighter that could provide the necessary capability at lower cost.
"We look forward to working with our Canadian Partners, along with the other partner nations, to drive to affordable acquisition of the F-35," Morgan said.
Canada's decision to launch a new competition is not expected to have much short-term impact on the F-35 program since Canada was only slated to start buying jets in several years.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, David Gregorio and M.D. Golan)
By Andrea Shalal-Esa


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Light Cyan Green Banarasi Art Silk Saree
Rs. 2,695
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Light Cyan Green Banarasi Art Silk Saree
Collection: Mangalaya Silk
Fabric Type: Art Silk
Primary Colour: Cyan
Secondary Colour(s): Pink
Saree Length: 6.3 meters including 0.8 meter blouse
Blouse Material: Contrast Pink Silk
Washing Instructions: Dry Clean Only
We design and manufacture this item; thus you will receive a 100% authentic product. Also, Images are slightly different on some devices but all our products look far superior compared to images on mobile or computer screen.
Collection: Mangalaya Silk
Fabric Type: Art Silk
Primary Colour: Cyan
Secondary Colour(s): Pink
Saree Length: 6.3 meters including 0.8 meter blouse
Blouse Material: Contrast Pink Silk
Washing Instructions: Dry Clean Only
We design and manufacture this item; thus you will receive a 100% authentic product. Also, Images are slightly different on some devices but all our products look far superior compared to images on mobile or computer screen.
About Manjubaa Brand
- Manjubaa is a leading Banarasi Silk Designing & Manufacturing House from Surat, Gujarat in India
- Manjubaa Sarees are available at 7400+ local saree retailers in India and around the world
- We are obsessed with silk sarees and we are glad to have a fanbase who keeps motivating us to bring gorgeous sarees with new collections.
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- Manjubaa is a designing and manufacturing house; hence all sarees you see on our websites are 100% authentic product of Brand Manjubaa.
- We are among top designers and manufacturers in India for quality banarasi silk and our customers can vouch for us.
- Each and every saree designs are finalized by hundreds of modifications that includes pattern modification, fabric checks, upto date with latest trends and colors and shades from different angles.
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This week on the io9 show We Come From The Future, we talk about how you're going to get your ass to space and stay there. We ponder the best options for artificial gravity, discuss the real meaning of "space opera," and then take a break with an experiment that could help you snuff out your friends — or just extinguish candles in a spooky way.
You can catch more episodes of the io9 Show on YouTube or Revision3. We're also on iTunes! Tune in every Friday for a giant dose of the future that will have you tripping your face off all weekend.


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Airsoft Surgeon M870 Slug Shot
+Realism to The Extreme!
+Excellent build quality
+High power
+/- Ejecting shells
-Costly ammo
+/- Ejecting shells
Products like this are one more reason why Airsoft models can and should be taken seriously. Airsoft Surgeon shotguns adds to the selection from a fresh new angle, that has so far been left relatively unexplored.
Although shotguns have a worldwide history in almost all locations where firearms have been known and used, it can safely be said to be a very North-American weapon. Muskets and other early firearms regardless of origin had a smooth bore, and they used solid spherical bullets as well as a "shot" (small amount of pellets shot at the same time), but the term "shotgun" was first reportedly used in Kentucky as early as 1776. When barrel rifling was invented and became more common, and the barrel bore of said rifled weapons was reduced in size, the long group of firearms was separated into rifles and shotguns.
The development of shotguns continued alongside other innovations made in the firearms industry. A well known name for all small-arms enthousiasts, John Moses Browning, has a lot of innovations and inventions under his name. When it comes to shotguns, these include the first lever action shotgun (1887), the first pump-action shotgun (1893), and the first semiautomatic shotgun, the Auto-5 (1900). The latter remained in production for almost a hundred years, until 1998.
Despite being invented almost at the same time, law enforcement and military users still stick mostly to pump-action shotguns. They offer a more simple and robust construction that is cheaper to manufacture, and are insensitive to the power of the load. Most "less lethal" rounds such as bean bags and rubber bullets are fired with such a small load of gunpowder, that semiautomatic shotguns would malfunction or refuse to cycle at all.
The worldwide military usage of shotguns has been a dragon's back, going up and down as certainly as the world goes around. The limited range of shotguns make them less than ideal for longer ranges. On the other hand they have been proven worthy their weight in gold, when utilized to sweep trenches in the first world war, brush through the jungles of the Pacific in the second big fight, and in the dense bushes of Vietnam in the sixties. With shotgun-launched grenades in development to add to the already wide selection of ammunition, the shotgun is far from being an outdated weapon.
Given their long history and wide reputation among real firearms, you would think shotguns are popular and common in airsoft as well. Actually, they are not. A lot of airsoft shotguns fire a single BB, which makes them no different in function from airsoft pistol and rifle models. Very close to something that actually works like a shotgun with good effect have been the 40 mm grenade launcher models.
Tokyo Marui did bring something new in the fields with the SPAS-12, that fires 3 BBs with a remarkably good range and decent spread as well. Still, it has been criticized for being hard to cock, and a lot of users ask for a more realistic loading action. You have to admit that with shotguns, just like revolvers, the shells are an important part of the "sense of wonder" and immersion into the game or simulation. With a rifle or pistol you simply change a magazine to reload, but with revolvers and shotguns the shells are manipulated by hand.
Maruzen took a step forward with their M870 and M1100 series shotguns, which use more realistic shells and shoot multiple BBs. From a gamer's point of view, the power is not satisfying, and the shells are undersized compared to real 12 gauge shells. These models also require a gas tank in the grip or stock to operate, which puts a limit to the firepower you have at hand, even if your belt, bandolieer and pouches are full of shells.
Not more than a couple of years ago, Tanaka released the most realistic airsoft shotgun to date, their replica of the famous Winchester 1897. With realistic sized shells with gas inside, and quite a a good power straight away, it combines the good features of airsoft shotguns in one package. The shotgun series, now expanded with the Remington M870, have metal receivers and outer barrels, and even the internals are very realistic in action! Of course there are key points in the design, which effectively prevent firing real shells or converting the model to do that.
All the good points aside, the shells are ABS plastic, and their tips have a tendency to get detached and lost easily. They also suffer from anything more powerful than HFC134a. In any case, "Airsoft Surgeon" Clarence Lai thought this was the near-perfect platform, on which to base his lineup of custom shotguns.
This is how you load a pump-action shotgun. Applicable to Tanaka Works, Airsoft Surgeon and various real models.
As with all his Airsoft Surgeon custom guns, Clarence thought first how to improve the platform that was good already. "The upgrade must be effective, or it isn't worth doing." is his philosophy.
The first evident issue was the sensitive shell, and it was substituted by his own design quite quickly. These Super Magnum shells are recommended for all Tanaka shotgun users, who want more power without having to go into the internals. The exterior is a more durable polymer material, and the base is machined high grade aluminum instead of die-cast like the originals. The ability to use all types of gas up to CO2 makes them especially versatile for various needs.
Naturally certain internal parts were improved as well, such as the firing pin, which is reinforced to withstand a stronger hammer spring and harder resistance from the high pressure shells. For the succeeding models the modifications went even further into the outer barrel.
The next leap forward involved a serious reworking of the shotgun itself. Named "The Slug Shot" after the first ammo type, it is now more versatile, with two different kinds of Slugshot shells and a Buckshot shell available as well. As with a real shotgun, you can change the shells "on the fly", to choose the appropriate ammo for the situation. The barrel bore is no longer 6 mm, but over twice as big. Just like a real shotgun barrel, it isn't just any milk straw!
The Buckshot is the kind of ammo that people think of first, when they think of shotguns. The shell holds a cup and 9 BBs, all of which are shot out at the same time. Compared to previous airsoft shotgun shells, all the BBs have the same muzzle energy.
The cup and lid are lightweight and quickly caught by air resistance, while the BBs continue forward in a cluster, and spread as the distance grows. Because of this dispersion, it is safe to use for war-gaming and force-on-force training. The cup can hold pretty much anything as payload. A RAM paintball is a good alternative projectile, but in the end only your imagination sets the limits. Mixing BBs with flour or baby powder gives a nice effect when the shell is shot!
The Slugshot or just "slug" is a lump of solid material that doesn't spread when it leaves the barrel. Instead, the brute force of the projectile is applied to the same area, and it doesn't leave a small hole in the target!
The more human-friendly training slug weighs 1.9 grams, and is best suited for Top Gas. It has sufficient power to let the other player certainly notice he's been shot. When a three-gram slug is shot even a little bit harder than you can throw one, it may quickly become uncomfortable for the opponents in war-gaming. Obviously the main purpose of the heavier slug shot is practice and training use with no live targets. Compared to the 1.9 gram slug, the 3.0 gram version provides better accuracy and performance with CO2.
To charge the gas, you will need to disassemble the shell. First, pull the metal core and polymer exterior apart. It will be easier and prolong the O-ring life if you rotate it at the same time. The slug or buckshot can simply be pushed out of the polymer exterior.
To reset the gas valve, push the fill-valve down. The mock primer in the rear of the metal core will not be completely flush, but a little bit recessed. Then fill the gas as with any gas operated airsoft model. The shells are good for anything up to CO2 (500 PSI max.), and the metal core is identical between the shells.
The next step is to reattach the polymer exterior and metal core. Again, rotate it as you push to make it easier on yourself and the O-rings. The shells have their distinct exterior parts, and the buckshot can be recognized by a small step inside, that prevents the shot from sinking in too deep.
As you push the slug into the shell, you will notice that the air has nowhere to escape, because the system is sealed. Push the slug as far as it goes, and then pull the exterior a little bit forward to clear the second O-ring. Now when you tilt the exterior a little bit, the excess air bleeds out and you can push the exterior back on. The cup of the buckshot is easier to insert into the exterior compared to the slug, as the cup is not as tight. After inserting the cup you put the BBs in, and close it with the provided lid.
Every single button and lever works 100% like on the real thing, and the loading procedure and feel are the same as well. This makes the shotgun a viable option for training, whether it's for sport or work, or just for the challenge of aquiring the skills. On top of the realism, the performance is really good for anyone who wants to be a shotgunner in war-games, so it's hard to say who wouldn?t want one, unless you really dislike shotguns in general.
Using a real working shotgun with blanks or other training ammo in FOF is an accident waiting to happen, unless the shotgun is somehow modified solely for that specific ammo, and made unable to chamber and fire actual shells.
The Airsoft Surgeon shotgun series caters a whole new hobbyist group as well: A realistic airsoft model in IPSC-style shotgun competition use has the distinct advantage of being legal in most countries, and free of registering as well. In addition you can build stages for practice or a competition even indoors, where real firearms would require heavy backstops and ventilation.
Airsoft guns in general are gaining popularity and credibility as training weapons, and products like this are one more reason why these toys can and should be taken seriously. Airsoft Surgeon shotguns adds to this phenomena from a fresh new angle, that has so far been left relatively unexplored.


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In the past, moths were repelled by powerful odors that are offensive to people too! We found a way to repel moths more effectively and with no bad smell. Simply put, Moth Guard works by creating a flavor barrier that repels moths by taste. No one had ever been able to do this before, which is why Moth Guard is so pleasant to use.
The idea behind Moth Guard has been around for over 35 years in the oriental carpet cleaning industry. Now you can have the same protection at home for all your woolen clothes and to protect your collection of oriental carpets. We have improved the formula for Moth Guard over the last 35 years, crafting the perfect product for use in the home on Persian rugs and even clothing!
Moth Guard IS the perfect solution to the problem of ridding wool of moths without offensive odors or dangerous chemicals. If you knit precious heirlooms, own expensive wool clothes, or have valuable oriental carpets, you need this economical and proven moth protector.
If you value your wool creations, here are the advantages of protecting them from moths with Moth Guard!
– Peace of mind from moth infestations in valuable wool garments.
– Cheap insurance against moths.
– Wear and enjoy your clothes year-round without offensive chemical odors.
– End the hassle of spring storing and protecting your wool clothes from moths.
– Will not cause skin irritation beyond the feel of normal wool.
– Causes adult moths to search elsewhere for food.
Moth Guard is a water-based formula that is safe to human skin once applied to a garment. Moth Guard is the first completely odorless remedy for clothes moths. Moth Guard is colorless and is hypoallergenic. Moth Guard will work on all wool garments, oriental carpets, drapery and any other woolen item. And since moths like bird feathers even more than they like to eat wool, Moth Guard can be sprayed on any feathered art object or wild bird mounts for protection.


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Here's what you need to know about the warming planet, how it's affecting us, and what's at stake.
By Tim Appenzeller
Republished from the pages of National Geographic magazine
It's there on a monitor: the forest is breathing. Late summer sunlight filters through a canopy of green as Steven Wofsy unlocks a shed in a Massachusetts woodland and enters a room stuffed with equipment and tangled with wires and hoses.
The machinery monitors the vital functions of a small section of Harvard Forest in the center of the state. Bright red numbers dance on a gauge, flickering up and down several times a second. The reading reveals the carbon dioxide concentration just above the treetops near the shed, where instruments on a hundred-foot (30-meter) tower of steel lattice sniff the air. The numbers are running surprisingly low for the beginning of the 21st century: around 360 parts per million, ten less than the global average. That's the trees' doing. Basking in the sunshine, they inhale carbon dioxide and turn it into leaves and wood.
In nourishing itself, this patch of pine, oak, and maple is also undoing a tiny bit of a great global change driven by humanity. Start the car, turn on a light, adjust the thermostat, or do just about anything, and you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. If you're an average resident of the United States, your contribution adds up to more than 5.5 tons (5 metric tons) of carbon a year.
The coal, oil, and natural gas that drive the industrial world's economy all contain carbon inhaled by plants hundreds of millions of years ago—carbon that now is returning to the atmosphere through smokestacks and exhaust pipes, joining emissions from forest burned to clear land in poorer countries. Carbon dioxide is foremost in an array of gases from human activity that increase the atmosphere's ability to trap heat. (Methane from cattle, rice fields, and landfills, and the chlorofluorocarbons in some refrigerators and air conditioners are others.) Few scientists doubt that this greenhouse warming of the atmosphere is already taking hold. Melting glaciers, earlier springs, and a steady rise in global average temperature are just some of its harbingers.
By rights it should be worse. Each year humanity dumps roughly 8.8 billion tons (8 metric tons) of carbon into the atmosphere, 6.5 billion tons (5.9 metric tons) from fossil fuels and 1.5 billion (1.4 metric) from deforestation. But less than half that total, 3.2 billion tons (2.9 metric tons), remains in the atmosphere to warm the planet. Where is the missing carbon? "It's a really major mystery, if you think about it," says Wofsy, an atmospheric scientist at Harvard University. His research site in the Harvard Forest is apparently not the only place where nature is breathing deep and helping save us from ourselves. Forests, grasslands, and the waters of the oceans must be acting as carbon sinks. They steal back roughly half of the carbon dioxide we emit, slowing its buildup in the atmosphere and delaying the effects on climate.
Who can complain? No one, for now. But the problem is that scientists can't be sure that this blessing will last, or whether, as the globe continues to warm, it might even change to a curse if forests and other ecosystems change from carbon sinks to sources, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than they absorb. The doubts have sent researchers into forests and rangelands, out to the tundra and to sea, to track down and understand the missing carbon.
This is not just a matter of intellectual curiosity. Scorching summers, fiercer storms, altered rainfall patterns, and shifting species—the disappearance of sugar maples from New England, for example—are some of the milder changes that global warming might bring. And humanity is on course to add another 200 to 600 parts per million to atmospheric carbon dioxide by late in the century. At that level, says Princeton University ecologist Steve Pacala, "all kinds of terrible things could happen, and the universe of terrible possibilities is so large that probably some of them will." Coral reefs could vanish; deserts could spread; currents that ferry heat from the tropics to northern regions could change course, perhaps chilling the British Isles and Scandinavia while the rest of the globe keeps warming.
If nature withdraws its helping hand—if the carbon sinks stop absorbing some of our excess carbon dioxide—we could be facing drastic changes even before 2050, a disaster too swift to avoid. But if the carbon sinks hold out or even grow, we might have extra decades in which to wean the global economy from carbon-emitting energy sources. Some scientists and engineers believe that by understanding natural carbon sinks, we may be able to enhance them or even create our own places to safely jail this threat to global climate.
The backdrop for these hopes and fears is a natural cycle as real as your own breathing and as abstract as the numbers on Wofsy's instruments. In 1771, about the time of the first stirrings of the industrial revolution and its appetite for fossil fuel, an English minister grasped key processes of the natural carbon cycle. In a series of ingenious experiments, Joseph Priestley found that flames and animals' breath "injure" the air in a sealed jar, making it unwholesome to breathe. But a green sprig of mint, he found, could restore its goodness. Priestley could not name the gases responsible, but we know now that the fire and respiration used up oxygen and gave off carbon dioxide. The mint reversed both processes. Photosynthesis took up the carbon dioxide, converted it into plant tissue, and gave off oxygen as a by-product.
The world is just a bigger jar. Tens of billions of tons of carbon a year pass between land and the atmosphere: given off by living things as they breathe and decay and taken up by green plants, which produce oxygen. A similar traffic in carbon, between marine plants and animals, takes place within the waters of the ocean. And nearly a hundred billion tons of carbon diffuse back and forth between ocean and atmosphere.
Compared with these vast natural exchanges, the few billion tons of carbon that humans contribute to the atmosphere each year seem paltry. Yet like a finger on a balance, our steady contributions are throwing the natural cycle out of whack. The atmosphere's carbon backup is growing: Its carbon dioxide level has risen by some 30 percent since Priestley's time. It may now be higher than it has been in at least 20 million years.
Pieter Tans is one of the scientists trying to figure out why those numbers aren't even worse. At a long, low National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) laboratory set against pine-clad foothills in Boulder, Colorado, Tans and his colleagues draw conclusions from the subtlest of clues. They measure minute differences in the concentration of carbon dioxide in air samples collected at dozens of points around the globe by weather stations, airplanes, and ships.
These whiffs of air are stacked against a wall in Tans's lab in 2.6-quart (2.5-liter) glass flasks. Because the churning of the atmosphere spreads carbon dioxide just about evenly around the planet, concentrations in the bottles don't differ by more than a fraction of a percent. But the differences hold clues to the global pattern of carbon dioxide sources and sinks. Scientists calculate, for example, that carbon dioxide should pile up in the Northern Hemisphere, which has most of the world's cars and industry. But the air samples show a smaller than expected difference from south to north. That means, Tans says, that "there has to be a very large sink of carbon in the Northern Hemisphere."
Other clues in the air samples hint at what that sink is. Both the waters of the ocean and the plants on land steal carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But they leave different fingerprints behind. Because plants give off oxygen when they absorb carbon dioxide, a plant sink would lead to a corresponding oxygen increase. But when carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, no oxygen is added to the atmosphere.
Plants taking in carbon dioxide also change what they leave behind. That's because plants prefer gas that contains carbon 12, a lighter form of the carbon atom. The rejected gas, containing carbon 13, builds up in the atmosphere. The ocean, though, does not discriminate, leaving the carbon ratio unchanged. From these clues, Tans and others have found that while the ocean is soaking up almost half the globe's missing carbon—2 billion tons (1.8 billion metric tons) of it—the sink in the Northern Hemisphere appears to be the work of land plants. Their appetite for carbon dioxide surges and ebbs, but they remove, on average, more than 2 billion tons (1.8 billion metric tons) of carbon a year.
Forests like Wofsy's are one place where it's happening. For more than a decade his group has monitored the carbon dioxide traffic between the trees and the air. Instruments on his tower track air above the treetops as wind and solar heating stir it. As each waft of air passes the tower, sensors measure its carbon dioxide content. The theory is simple, says Wofsy: "If an air parcel going up has less carbon dioxide than an air parcel going down, you have carbon dioxide being deposited onto the forest."
The amount changes fast. "Sunshine, perhaps the temperature, rainfall over the past week—all those factors affect what the forest does on an hour-to-hour basis," he says. Even a passing cloud can dampen photosynthesis, spoiling the trees' appetite for carbon. In winter, when leaves fall and decay, more carbon dioxide—a by-product of plant respiration and decomposition—seeps back out of the forest and into the atmosphere. Still, over more than ten years, the bottom line of billions of measurements has been positive. On balance, Harvard Forest is sieving carbon from the atmosphere.
It shows in the trees and on the forest floor. To check that their high-tech air measurements weren't somehow being fooled, Wofsy's group strapped calibrated steel bands around trees to measure their growth, gathered and weighed deadfall, and set up bins to collect fallen leaves. The idea was to measure just how much carbon-containing wood and other organic matter was building up in the forest, and to see if it matched the gas measurements. It did. Each acre of the forest has been taking roughly 0.8 ton (0.75 metric ton) of carbon out of the atmosphere annually, doing its humble part to counteract greenhouse warming.
Other forests at research sites in the eastern U.S. are putting on weight as well. That's no surprise, Wofsy says. "In the eastern U.S., the most common age for a forest is 40 to 60 years. That's the kind of forest that's going to be growing."
The current Harvard Forest, in fact, has a precise birth date: 1938, when a hurricane barreled in from the Atlantic and leveled earlier stands of trees. Elsewhere in the U.S. humans were the hurricane, clearing vast stands of forest for farming. Abandoned in the early 20th century as agriculture shifted westward to the plains, the land is yielding to forest again. The trees, still young, are getting taller and stouter and putting on denser wood. Year by year this slow alchemy locks up carbon in thousands of square miles of eastern forest.
More missing carbon could be hiding in the West. Fire once regularly swept the grasslands, rejuvenating them while killing off woody shrubs like mesquite, juniper, and scrub oak. Decades of firefighting policies called for dousing the smallest blaze and allowed the brush to thrive. The practice disrupted the grasslands' natural cycle and led to bulkier, woodier brush that fueled larger, more destructive fires. But it may also have created a major storehouse for carbon. All told, forest and scrub across the 48 states could be taking in half a billion tons of carbon, balancing out more than a third of the emissions from U.S. cars and factories. It's a huge gift, says Wofsy: "That's at least four times what they were trying with Kyoto"—the climate treaty that the U.S. refused to ratify—"and it hasn't hurt anyone."
That leaves more than 1.5 billion tons (1.4 billion metric tons) of missing carbon to account for in the Northern Hemisphere. Mature forests, such as tropical rain forest and the great belt of coniferous forest across Alaska and Canada, probably can't help because they're in a steady state, taking in no more carbon dioxide for growth than they give off (plants breathe too). But Europe's managed woodlands, new forests planted in China, and forests regrowing in Siberia after decades of logging could account for another half billion tons (.45 billion metric tons), researchers say.
Then there is a change in the far north, where satellite measurements over the past 20 years have shown that vegetation is getting lusher and enjoying a longer growing season. Natives of the North American Arctic report a new luxuriance on the tundra, where once stunted plants, such as dwarf birch, willow, and alder, are growing taller. The reason is simple, says Princeton's Pacala: "You go to the far north, and it's just palpable how much warming there is."
Indeed it is. While the world as a whole has warmed by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degree Celsius) since 1900, parts of Alaska have warmed by 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 degrees Celsius). Brad Griffith studies caribou at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he has noticed a change in the winters. He remembers clear, cold days and powder snow. "It was never slick, never cloudy; you never had to clean your windshield." Now the winters arc warmer, wetter, and slushier. The shrubs on the North Slope seem to love the change, and Griffith has found that the lusher forage gives newborn caribou a better shot at survival.
That's the good news from the north: Right now global warming, ironically, may be helping forestall even more warming, by speeding the growth of carbon-absorbing trees. But balanced against that are warning signs—hints that northern ecosystems could soon turn against us. Eventually, warming in the far north may have what scientists call a positive feedback effect, in which warming triggers new floods of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, driving temperatures higher.
Worrisome signs begin on the aircraft approach to Anchorage. As the route skirts the hundred-mile-wide (161-kilometer-wide) Kenai Peninsula, ugly gray gaps appear in the dark green canopy of spruce below. Since the early 1990s bark beetles have been on the rampage in the Kenai, killing spruce on more than 2-million acres (809,000 hectares) there. Farther south in the Kenai, says Glenn Juday, a forest ecologist at the University of Alaska, skeletal trees stretch from horizon to horizon. "It's the largest single area of trees killed by insects in North America," says Juday. "No outbreak this size has happened in the past 250 years."
The vast tracts of dead trees will ultimately send their carbon back to the atmosphere when decay or fire consumes them. A warming climate is likely to blame, Juday and others believe. Warmth favors the beetle by speeding up its life cycle and improving its chance of surviving the winter. And as Juday has found in his study area, warming also stresses the hardy northern trees, making them less able to fight off infestation.
Two hundred seventy miles (434 kilometers) north of the Kenai, on a hillside just west of Fairbanks, the Parks Loop Stand appears to the unschooled eye to be thriving. But Juday, who has worked in this grove of hundred-foot-tall (30-meter-tall) white spruce for 15 years, knows practically every tree's biography—and he is concerned. Heavier, wetter snowfalls have broken off branches and crowns. The trees have also been assaulted by a pest new to northern Alaska, the spruce budworm.
The first outbreak of spruce budworm in this region was recorded in 1989, and Juday thinks the warmer climate is again to blame. Sickly orange branches high in the trees and ragged spruce seedlings festooned with black pupae show that the budworm is still at work. "This was a healthy, beautiful white spruce stand," says Juday. But so many trees have died that the formerly dense canopy has opened up, and the moss that carpeted the shadowy floor has given way to sun-loving grasses.
It's not just the snow and the pests. On the jagged stump of a recently fallen tree Juday points to another fingerprint of warming. The 200-year-old tree's growth rings are thick at the core of the stump, but the outermost rings, representing the tree's last few decades of life, are as thin as puff pastry layers. Juday believes the tree's growth has been slowing because of hotter summers. Thin rings are a sign that the trees are undergoing stress, running short of water in the heat.
Since that finding, Juday's group has examined cores from black spruce, another major tree type in interior Alaska. It too grows more slowly in warmer years because of moisture stress. The future of the northern forest could be bleak. Assuming that Alaska continues to warm at the rate some climate models predict, Juday's analysis points to "zero white-spruce growth" by 2090. If that happened, the boreal forest as we know it would be no more. A smaller carbon storehouse could take its place—perhaps a grassy parkland dotted with aspen groves, Juday suggests. Substantial amounts of carbon dioxide could be released into the atmosphere from the corpse of the old forest.
Across the far north a still bigger pulse of greenhouse gas could come from the soil. In a somber grove of black spruce on the broad floodplain of the Tanana River south of Fairbanks, Jamie Hollingsworth, who manages an ecological research site at the University of Alaska, sinks a 4-foot (1.2-meter) steel probe into a damp carpet of moss. It slips in easily at first, then stops abruptly about three feet (one meter) in. Hollingsworth digs through a foot-thick (0.3-meter-thick) layer of moss, roots, and decaying needles, then scoops aside the silty soil below until his shovel grates on the hard permafrost that defeated the probe. Chipping off a clod or two, he reveals silvery veins of ice.
That eternal ice is in jeopardy across much of the far north. Near Fairbanks, at the heart of Alaska, the soil has warmed as much as 3 degrees Fahrenheit (5.4 degrees Celsius) over the past 40 years, putting large tracts of permafrost in danger of thawing. Here and there—even at spots on the university campus—it has already crossed the threshold, and melting has left the ground unstable and boggy. Farther north there's a larger margin of safety.
Fires can speed up the melting. In the summer of 2001 a fire raced through a hundred thousand acres (40,000 hectares) of floodplain forest along the Tanana. The charred snags now stand on bare sand and silt, in many places burned clean of the usual thick moss carpet. The moss is critical to the permafrost: It insulates the soil, keeping it at subfreezing temperatures and helping preserve the ice through the summer. Any permafrost in the fire zone is now in danger of thawing—and hotter summers have made fires more common in many parts of the north, including Siberia and western Canada.
Climate experts keep a worried eye on the permafrost because vast reserves of peat and other carbon-rich organic material are frozen into it—a global trove of carbon estimated at 200 billion tons (181.4 metric tons). For hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years low temperatures entombed it. Now, says Terry Chapin of the University of Alaska, "it's potentially a very large time bomb."
The permafrost's full megatonnage isn't certain. Some of the subterranean ice would create bogs when it melted, and the oxygen-poor waters of bogs can inhibit decay and keep the carbon locked up. But northern warming could well bring a drier climate, and that could open the way to a worst-case scenario, says NOAA's Tans. "If, due to warming in the Arctic, the permafrost warmed up and dried out, most of that carbon could be released." The atmospheric level of carbon dioxide could jump by a hundred parts per million as a result, he says—more than 25 percent above current levels.
So where in nature can we look for salvation? Until recently climate scientists hoped it would come from farther south. In temperate and tropical vegetation, they thought, a negative feedback effect called carbon fertilization might rein in the carbon dioxide rise. Plants need carbon dioxide to grow, and scientists have found that in laboratory chambers well-nourished plants bathed in high-carbon dioxide air show a surge of growth. So out in the real world, it seemed, plants would grow faster and faster as carbon dioxide built up in the atmosphere, stashing more carbon in their stems, trunks, and roots and helping to slow the atmospheric buildup. Such a growth boost could, for example, turn mature tropical forests—which normally don't soak up any more carbon than they give off—into carbon dioxide sponges.
Alas, it appears not to work. At Duke University's forest in North Carolina, William Schlesinger and his colleagues have been giving hundred-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) plots of pines a sniff of the future. Over each plot a ring of towers emits carbon dioxide at just the right rate to keep the concentration in the trees at 565 parts per million, the level the real atmosphere might reach by midcentury. When the experiment started seven years ago, the trees showed an initial pulse of growth.
"These trees woke up to high carbon dioxide and were able to make good with it for a couple of years," says Schlesinger. But then the growth spurt petered out, and the trees' growth has slipped most of the way back to normal. That's not to say that high carbon dioxide didn't have some long-term effects. Poison ivy, for some reason, "is one of the winners," says Schlesinger, with a sustained growth rate 70 percent faster than normal. And allergy sufferers will not be pleased to learn that the carbon dioxide-fertilized pines produced extravagant amounts of pollen.
To take advantage of a carbon dioxide bonanza, it seems, most plants also need extra nitrogen and other nutrients. Schlesinger's experiment is one of many to show lately that in the real world, more carbon just means plants will probably run short of something else essential. Resurgent forests are soaking up plenty of carbon now, but we owe that mainly to our ax-wielding forebears, who cleared the land in centuries past. That land sink is not likely to increase by much, say scientists. And it will eventually saturate as today's young forests mature. "We can expect this sink to disappear on the order of a hundred years," says Princeton's Pacala. "You can't count on it to keep getting larger, like manna from heaven, the way a carbon-fertilization sink would."
The outlook for an increased ocean sink is no brighter. Taro Takahashi of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has spent decades on oceanographic research ships, making thousands of carbon dioxide measurements just above and just below the water surface to track the exchange of gas between the ocean and the atmosphere.
The North Atlantic and the southern oceans have cold, nutrient-rich waters that welcome carbon dioxide, Takahashi has found. Carbon dioxide dissolves easily in cold water, and the nutrients foster marine-plant growth that quickly uses up the dissolved carbon dioxide. When the plants and the animals that feed on them die and sink into the abyss, their remains carry away the carbon and make room for more.
The traffic mostly goes the other way in warmer, less biologically rich seas. But the global balance is favorable, for now at least. More carbon dioxide dissolves in the oceans than is given off. Takahashi's measurements confirm that the oceans take up nearly as much carbon as the regrowing forests and thickening brush on land: an average of 2 billion tons (1.8 billion metric tons) a year. "One-half of the missing carbon is ending up in the ocean," Takahashi says.
That may be as good as it gets," he adds. "My major question is whether this ratio is going to change" as global warming raises the temperature of surface waters and carbon dioxide continues to build up in the atmosphere. "The prognosis is not particularly bright," Takahashi says. A warm soda fizzing over the rim of a glass illustrates one effect: carbon dioxide is less soluble in warmer water. What's more, dissolved carbon dioxide can easily slip back into the atmosphere unless it is taken up by a marine plant or combines with a "buffer" molecule of carbonate.
But the ocean's supply of carbonate is limited and is replenished only slowly as it is washed into the ocean by rivers that erode carbonate-containing rocks such as limestone. In absorbing those two billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere year after year, the ocean is gradually using up its buffer supply. Jorge Sarmiento, an oceanographer at Princeton University, has been trying to predict the impact of such changes on the ocean's ability to act as a carbon dioxide sponge. He expects that over the next century, its carbon appetite will drop by 10 percent—and it may ebb much further in the long run.
With no new help from nature in sight, perhaps it is time for us to think about creating our own carbon sinks. Scientists have dreamed up plenty of possibilities: planting new forests, for example, which the Kyoto climate treaty would encourage. The approach has already taken root on a grand scale in China, where the government has planted tens of millions of acres since the 1970s. The bureaucrats set out to control floods and erosion, not stem global change, but the effect has been to soak up nearly half a billion tons (.45 billion metric tons) of carbon.
Steve Wofsy sees another possibility in his forest studies. Young forests like his study plot are hungry for carbon right now because they are growing vigorously. So why not try to keep a forest young indefinitely, by regular thinning? "You manage it so that every year or every ten years you take out a certain amount of wood" to be used in, say, paper, housing, and furniture, Wofsy says. "You might have a situation where you could make the landscape continue to take up carbon for a long time—indefinitely."
Then there's the siren call of the sea. Although as Sarmiento points out the ocean's natural uptake is dwindling, scientists have tried to find a way to give a boost to its carbon appetite. In the 1980s oceanographer John Martin suggested that across large tracts of ocean, the tiny green plants that are the marine equivalent of forests and grasslands are, in effect, anemic. What keeps them from flourishing—and perhaps sucking up vast quantities of carbon dioxide—is a lack of iron. Martin and others began to talk of a "Geritol solution" to global warming: Send out a fleet of converted oil tankers to sprinkle the oceans with an iron compound, and the surge of plant growth would cleanse the air of industrial emissions. As the plants and the animals that grazed on them died and sank, the carbon in their tissues would be safely locked away in the deep ocean.
Reality has not been quite so elegant. Experiments have shown that Martin was partly right: A dash of iron sulfate does cause the ocean's surface waters to bloom with patches of algae tens of miles long, so vivid they can be seen by satellites. But oceanographers monitoring what happens in the water have been disappointed to find that when the extra plants and the animals they nourish die, their remains mostly decay before they have a chance to sink and be buried. The carbon dioxide from the decay nourishes new generations of plants, reducing the need for extra carbon from the atmosphere. Nature is just too thrifty for iron fertilization to work.
Perhaps carbon can be deep-sixed without nature's help: filtered from power plant emissions, compressed into a liquid, and pumped into ocean depths. Ten thousand feet (3,000 thousand meters) down, water pressure would squeeze liquid carbon dioxide to a density great enough to pool on the seafloor, like vinegar in a bottle of salad dressing, before dissolving. At shallower depths it would simply disperse. Either way environmentalists and many scientists are wary of the scheme because injecting vast quantities of carbon dioxide would slightly acidify the deep ocean and might harm some marine life. Last year protesters forced scientists to cancel experiments meant to test the idea, first near Hawaii and then off Norway.
But Peter Brewer, who is studying the scheme at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, says it's too early to write it off. Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will acidify the ocean's surface waters in any case, he points out, and pumping some of the carbon into the ocean depths could slow that process. "Why would you want to take this off the table before you know what it does?" he asks.
The most fitting end for the carbon that human beings have tapped from the Earth, in coal, oil, and gas, would be to send it back where it came from—into coal seams, old oil and gas fields, or deep, porous rock formations. Not only would that keep the carbon out of the atmosphere, but the high-pressure injection could also be used to chase the last drops of oil or gas out of a depleted field.
In fact geologic sequestration, as it's called, is already under way. One field in the North Sea, for example, yields gas that is heavily contaminated with natural carbon dioxide. So before shipping the gas, the Norwegian oil company Statoil filters out the carbon dioxide and injects it into a sandstone formation half a mile (0.8 kilometer) below the seafloor. The U.S. Department of Energy plans to start its own test project, which would drill a 10,000-foot (3,000-meter) well in West Virginia and pump carbon dioxide into the deep rock.
No one knows yet how well such schemes might work in the long run. Tapped-out oil and gas fields are, by nature, full of man-made holes that might leak the carbon dioxide. Even if the stored gas didn't leak straight to the surface, it might seep into groundwater supplies. But the North Sea project seems to be working well eight years after it began. Seismic images that offer views beneath the ocean floor show that the thick layer of clay capping the sandstone is effectively sealing in the 6 million tons (5.4 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide injected so far.
That's encouraging news for researchers who are working on schemes that would allow humanity to keep burning fossil fuels without dire consequences for climate. Researchers at Princeton, for example, are exploring a technology that would take the carbon out of coal.
In a multistep process coal would react with oxygen and steam to make pure hydrogen, plus a stream of waste gases. The hydrogen could be burned to produce electricity or distributed to gas stations where hydrogen-powered cars—emitting nothing but water vapor—could fuel up. The waste, mostly carbon dioxide but also contaminants that coal-burning plants now emit, such as sulfur and mercury, would be buried. The scheme, says Princeton energy analyst Robert Williams, "could make coal as clean as renewable energy, and you can exploit the low cost of coal."
Or maybe the future lies in fields of solar panels, armies of giant wind turbines, or a new generation of safe nuclear reactors. No one knows, but that gauge in Wofsy's shack tells us that we don't have long to dither. The trees are doing their best, but year by year the flickering red number is climbing.


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U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Male Owner Sexually Harassed Female Employees, Fired Female Employee for Complaining About Harassment, Federal Agency Charged
GREENSBORO, N.C. – A Mount Airy, N.C.-based freight transportation and delivery company violated federal law by subjecting female employees to a hostile work environment, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.
According to the EEOC's lawsuit against Mountain River Trucking Company, Inc., Della Francis and other female employees were sexually harassed by the company's president and owner from approximately September 2007 through March 2008. Specifically, from October through November 2007, the owner made explicit sexual comments to Francis on a near-daily basis, including comments about the size of his private parts and his sexual prowess. He also told stories about sexual encounters he had with women, including his wife. The owner also showed Francis photos on his computer of nude women he wanted to have sex with. After Francis complained about the harassment, the company fired her, the EEOC said. According to the complaint, at least one other woman was also sexually harassed by the owner.
Sexual harassment violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the lawsuit, the EEOC seeks compensatory and punitive damages for the affected women, as well other relief. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Mountain River Trucking Company, Inc., Civil Action No. 1:10-cv-00600), after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement.
The EEOC seeks monetary damages for Francis and other similarly situated female employees who were subjected to the harassment. The suit also seeks an injunction to prevent Mountain River from maintaining a sexually hostile work environment and from retaliating against employees who oppose unlawful discrimination.
"Employers are liable for harassment by a company's owner or high-ranking official," said Lynette A. Barnes, regional attorney for the EEOC's Charlotte District. "Federal law recognizes such harassment as more serious than harassment by co-workers because the company's 'higher-ups' are involved, and company policies are unlikely to achieve a remedy. The EEOC will continue to make sure that employers fulfill their obligations to prevent and correct such discrimination."
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the EEOC is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov.


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Your Collection: Bike Collection
January 13, 2013 1:35pm
This weeks collection comes to us from Todd Streit.
Here is a 1987 Cr 500 that I just finished. Also pictured are my other bikes, 1985 CR 250, 1984 CR 80, 1983 RM 250, 1981 YZ 125. These bikes are raced every year at the High Point Vet National. The picture of the frame is from the CR 500. All of these bikes were tore down to the frame and restored and rebuilt. I have a 1978 RM 250 that I am working on now. Thanks for looking.


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The highly skilled sharpshooters known as snipers (a term that originated in British India to describe hunters able to pick off the elusive "snipe" bird) became vitally important during the Second World War. Fighting on the Eastern Front, the Soviets, in particular, were expert marksmen — and noticeably dominate the following list.
The Soviet Union was the only country that had expressly trained sniper units in the decade leading up to the World War Two, and their superiority (with the obvious exception of the top-ranked sniper on this list) is clearly displayed by the numbers beside the names of its marksmen. Expert sharpshooters such as Vasily Zaytsev — who reputedly killed 225 soldiers during the Battle of Stalingrad — proved beyond all doubt their immense value to their military forces during the war. In the aftermath, their importance was never to be underestimated.


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UnNews:Lead singer of The Clash dead at 57
This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-microsecond misinformation.
15 February 2010
WOODLAND HILLS, California -- Doug Fieger, leader of The Knack, died Sunday. He was 57.
Fieger sang the lead on the 1979 hit My Sharona. He would have been 36 when his band finally realized that the key to commercial success was songs about seducing lusty 15-year-olds.
The song held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard pop chart for six weeks. It became a pop culture phenomenon, memorably covered by Cheech Marin as My Scrotum, and used by several other bands after long stretches where their own personal Muses didn't arrive.
Fieger, a Detroit-area native, died at his home near Los Angeles after battling multiple brain cancers. The reason that such afflictions strike so many in the rock business at relatively early ages is thought to be noise-cancelling headphones. Reportedly, Fieger did not ask his famous brother, trial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger, to contact famous client Jack Kevorkian, but let nature run its course. (The only other notable Michigan native is Bay City's Madonna.)
Fieger gave the AP an interview in 1994, in which he talked about the remarkable girl Sharona who inspired the chart-busting hit. That interview tastefully gave no clue at all as to what inspired the raunchy lyrics. But former President George W. Bush liked them enough to have the song on his personal iPod, famously dispelling all remaining doubts about his judgment.
UnNews has learned that remaining band members will conduct a charity concert tour to raise funds for medical research. They will reprise their signature hit as My Sarcoma.
- unattributed "The Knack lead singer Doug Fieger dies". Associated Press, February 15, 2010


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you are told that a substance is either a gas or a liquid. what additional information do you need to determine which it is?
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Brown University
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Chinese architecture: The Chinese Ground Plan
During the Han dynasty a characteristic ground plan was developed; it remained relatively constant through the centuries, applied to palaces and temple buildings in both China and Japan. Surrounded by an exterior wall, the building complex was arranged along a central axis and was approached by an entrance gate and then a spirit gate. Behind them in sequence came a public hall and finally the private quarters. Each residential unit was built around a central court with a garden. Based on imperial zoos and parks, the private residential garden soon became a distinctive feature of the walled complex and an art form in itself. The garden was laid out in a definite scheme, with a rest area and pavilions, ponds, and semiplanned vegetation.
- Introduction
- Structural Elements
- Early Architecture
- Architectural Development: T'ang Dynasty and Thereafter
- The Forbidden City
- The Pagoda
- The Chinese Ground Plan
- Modern Styles
- Bibliography
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Architecture


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TOD, Angela Mary, REDMAN, Judy, MCDONNELL, Ann, BORTHWICK, Diana and WHITE, John (2015). Lung cancer treatment rates and the role of the lung cancer nurse specialist : a qualitative study. BMJ Open, 5 (12), e008587.
TOD, Angela, MCDONNELL, Ann and REDMAN, Judy (2014). Opening doors to treatment. Exploring the impact of lung cancer specialist nurses on access to anti-cancer treatment: an exploratory case study. Project Report. Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield Hallam University. (Unpublished)
KENNEDY, Fiona, MCDONNELL, Ann, GERRISH, Kate, HOWARTH, Amanda, POLLARD, Carol and REDMAN, Judy (2012). Evaluation of the impact of nurse consultant roles in the United Kingdom: a mixed method systematic literature review. Journal Of Advanced Nursing, 68 (4), 721-742.
REDMAN, Judy and KENYON, Lynn (2011). Who will be the heroes? Community practitioner : the journal of the Community Practitioners' & Health Visitors' Association, 84 (3), 42-3.
REDMAN, Judy (2008). Creating and recreating the NHS: the importance of ensuring nurse involvement. Journal of Nursing Management, 16 (1), 21-28.
REDMAN, Judy, HIGGINBOTTOM, Gina and MASSEY, Marie-Therese (2008). Critical review of literature on ethnicity and health in relation to cancer and palliative care in the United Kingdom. Diversity in health and social care research, 5 (2), 137-150.
REDMAN, Judy (2004). Historical analysis. In: BASSETT, Christopher, (ed.) Qualitative research in health care. London, Whurr, 178-196.